Only Fourteen
by Hazel Maraa
Summary: She was only fourteen and here she was, signing her life away to a black cat named Luna. Usagi after the first time she became Sailor Moon.


I, as always, disclaim (without prompting, you should be proud of me).

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Dare I say it, but I think I've actually gotten bored of Harry Potter. How terrible is that? Well, not terrible, but unexpected to the point I shock. Just take a look at the mess I call my C2 archive and look at the recent entries. No Harry Potter in sight. D'you think that I've just learned so much about those characters, whether fanon or canon, that I just can't help but...avoid them? Oh hell, I'd make a terrible wife. xD. Got the concept from a review I was trying to write. Er, not trying, I did actually write it, but yeah. I'm so eloquent, I know. -winks-

Moving into a different fandom, m'dears. This is me super excited: EHEEEEHH!! xD.

Oh, okay, so, some things to keep in mind: I'm one of those ridiculous people who've only read the SM manga up to somewhere in the R arc, I can't remember where, but yeah. But I like the Japanese names better from the anime, weirdly enough, even though I've only ever seen the dub. :D

So if things happen differently in the original anime, heh, sorry. xD. Feel free to tell me though, I don't mind.

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Only Fourteen

(_and too young to live_)

By yours truly, Hazel Maraa

-

Usagi sighed and used her arms as protection, wrapped around her legs. Protection from what, she wondered, but didn't continue the thought. How long had she been sitting here like this? Sitting up on her bed, against the headboard, not making enough sound to wake up Luna, her new cat.

Her new cat.

She had dreamed of being someone special, of course she had. She was only fourteen, only fourteen, only fourteen and it echoed down on her, forever taunting. She was fourteen and already her life was signed away. Usagi wasn't even really sure how it had happened. It was just another day in her life where she'd woken up late and had to execute one of her infamous 100-yard dashes to school where she would, inevitably, be late once again.

She'd had dreams before she met her. Shallow and slightly underdeveloped details though they were, they were _hers_ and now she couldn't even have those because she had to protect some princess from some long lost kingdom that had been on the moon. The moon, of all places. Now she had to protect the world or whatever from the Nega-verse.

What kind of name was the Nega-verse, anyway? Usagi looked up, able to see the moon itself through her windows. Why her? Why _her_? She was lazy, a crybaby, helpless...hopeless...and most of all, she was alone.

She had dreamed of being like Sailor V, but never had she really thought she'd become like her. She wanted to be special and important, but as Usagi lay there in her bed, unable to sleep and strangely lonely, she didn't think being special and important was worth it anymore.

When suddenly Luna spoke to her that afternoon, telling her she was Sailor Moon, champion of love and justice, what was she supposed to do? Accept her duty like she actually wanted it? Pretend she wanted to be the one to save the day? She didn't want to get hurt. She didn't want to do this, she didn't, she didn't, she didn't, oh good lord she didn't.

She went though, and she froze. Bitterly, Usagi rather thought she'd always have the freeze instinct instead of the flight or fight ones. A masked man came and talked her through it and Usagi sighed again, recalling this.

Being a super heroine was not at all like she had expected. Not that she had known what to expect, but still. She could have sworn there was something about being happy somewhere. In any case, how does one expect something like that? She had a feeling you don't exactly expect something. She thought of Sailor V, figuring if she wasn't going to get any sleep she might as well make herself feel bad while doing it.

Usagi smiled wryly. She wasn't sure where that thought came from, but it amused her a bit. (Not finding it necessarily funny, but maybe just the irony got to her.) Irony didn't have a sense of humor, did it? Usagi wasn't sure.

Sailor V seemed to accept the burden of saving people from strange attacks almost gleefully, like she was happy to be protecting everyone. Like she was glad she could do it. Like it didn't press tears into her eyes and like it didn't make her want to throw up remembering how she obliterated something that, while not human, could clearly feel pain if that scream right before it was turned to dust was any indication.

"V, for victory," Usagi murmured. "I wonder if Sailor V-chan had a talking cat come up to her and tell her she had to fight for love and justice to protect everyone." The odds of that happening to Sailor V, too, were low, but then again, did she really want to test her math skills and try to figure out the odds of her, Usagi of all people, becoming Sailor Moon? "What a bad idea," Usagi muttered. "I wouldn't even know where to start. Plus," she said to herself with no pun intended, "I might just hurt myself. Who needs the Nega-verse when they can just leave me to myself and math can kill me?"

She wasn't sad, not really. Maybe she'd even grow out of her gracelessness. And she wasn't angry, either. She was scared. She didn't want to die and it didn't seem like she could from these things, these things that needed only a hit from her magic tiara to send them away into dust, but she had the bad feeling that if she really thought that she couldn't die, she _would_.

Usagi may not have been the smartest, or the prettiest, or the most mature, or, or, anything, but she certainly didn't have to be those things to know she didn't want to die. Not like that, definitely not like that. Not ever, really, but if she had to choose a way that she wouldn't want to die then that would definitely be it; yeah, she'd say that would definitely be how she wouldn't want to die. If, y'know, she had to choose.

Usagi wasn't sad, but for some reason she had to choke back tears because she didn't want to wake Luna and answer questions she didn't know the answers to, nor did she even know the questions themselves, if she thought about it. She hid her face into her knees, the sunken part of her eyes resting on her knees comfortably. The tears will eventually stop, she knew.

But she didn't want to think about it anymore. She squeezed her eyes tightly together, hoping that when she opened them her doubts would be gone or just not as greatly incapacitating as they were at that moment. She couldn't hold in her gasp, and tears spilled down her face, as she knew then she couldn't tell anyone who she was unless it was the princess. (At least, she hoped the tears would stop eventually.)

Or another Sailor Senshi. There would be more, Luna had explained, and you, Usagi, you have to find them so you can protect the princess.

Usagi had a strange feeling that she would come to hate that phrase - "so you can protect the princess" - in the coming days. Weeks. Months. Years, maybe. How long did finding Senshi and a princess take?

When she leaned back, stretching out onto her bed as if she were asleep excepting for her eyes that were wide open, she was briefly dizzy. "Too fast," she murmured, using the same soft tone as before. "Too fast."

Her mind sorted itself out, that is, it rightened itself out and ceased its dizziness and she could see straight again. Physically see straight, she meant, not figuratively see straight because she was no less confused than she was before.

"What am I going to do?" she whispered into the night. "What on earth am I going to do?" The slight pun fell on deaf ears, because she wasn't listening. Funny, she would have mused _had _she been listening, how she had never noticed she was so 'punny' before.

Fourteen years old, fourteen years old, fourteen years old, it echoed still, and she felt like there was a devil grinning with sharp teeth with a dark, undefined body-shape that had just stolen her soul.

For a minute she wondered if its name was Luna, then she closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep.

It was futile, as it had been earlier, and she didn't know how to fix it.

-

She was afraid to ask in case no one wanted her to fix it.

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Sigh, I think I just made myself a bit depressed. Cheers all, hey? And review, s'il vous-plaît?

(...I don't know if the funny hat thing over the I in plait will show up with FFN. Sorry French language pour deux choses: 1. For the fact that the accenty thing might not show and 2. I don't remember the names of those things. Circonflex? That might be it. -shrugs-)


End file.
